“Don’t confuse growing up with changing,” Tessa Lynch said, reading his mind again. “I’m talking about what’s inside, not the fact that you shave your chin.”
That seemed to Noonan an uncomfortably personal observation. What was Lucy’s mother doing looking at his chin? Suddenly there was an undercurrent of electricity in the car, and it was amped up a moment later when she turned onto the gravel drive and stopped at the main gate to the old Whitcombe estate, a spot that served, unless things had changed, as a lovers’ lane. It was almost full dark now, and the headlights sliced through the night, illuminating the dark outline of the Hall in the distance. He was relieved when Mrs. Lynch put the wagon in reverse, suggesting she just meant to turn around and head back.
But then she thought better of it, put the car in park and turned to face him. “Tell me what you mean to do,” she said, fixing him.
“Do? What do you mean, in the future?”
“Okay. Start there if you want. We can work backwards.”
“Graduate. After that, maybe move out west. I don’t know.”
“You plan to bring your mother out there with you?”
“No!” he blurted, the word escaping like a hiccup.
Mrs. Lynch smiled, not unkindly. “Right. So when you said there was nothing to worry about because you were home, you meant for the next year.”
“That’s not—”
“What about college?”
“Maybe. I’ll apply.”
“You’ve heard of Vietnam, right? You know what a word like ‘maybe’ means in that context? It could mean finding yourself in the jungle on the other side of the world for no good reason.” When he just shrugged, she forged ahead. “What about Lou?”
Was the woman insane? What about Lou? Was this a new subject or the same one? Was Lou going to college? Did he plan on enlisting for Vietnam? How should he know? “I don’t—”
“Why did you come to the store today?”
“He invited—”
“Don’t lead him on, Bobby. If you want to be friends, fine. If not, find a way out now. You know how he is.”
“He seems really good,” Noonan told her, a little ashamed that his friend’s mother should talk about him behind his back like this. “Happy, I mean. He’s changed a lot—”
“No, he hasn’t. You weren’t listening before. People don’t change.”
“He’s not having those spells anymore,” Noonan said, confident that he had her on this count at least.
“That’s a circumstance,” Tessa Lynch said, “and those change all the time. Today you’re healthy; tomorrow you discover a tumor. But who you are stays the same. Lou hasn’t changed any more than you have. You’re still the same boy you were that first time your mother tried to run away, the same boy who went out and gathered up her things off the street and stuffed them in that suitcase and lugged it home, fully expecting to get a whipping for your trouble. You didn’t think I knew about that, right? You thought you’d solved her problem then, too.”
“Actually, I think I’ve changed a lot since then,” Noonan said, feeling suddenly raw and exposed.
“I know you do, but you’re wrong. And now there’s Sarah.”
“I’m not interested in Sarah,” Noonan said, pretty sure he knew where all this was heading.
“You will be, when you get to know her.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, she’s Lucy’s girlfriend,” he said, correcting himself quickly when he saw her flinch, her eyes narrowing. “Lou’s girlfriend.”
At that moment there was a loud rap on the driver’s side window, causing both of them to jump just about out of their skins. Lucy’s mother was the first to recover, and she rolled down her window. A tiny black man, vaguely familiar, was grinning in at them. Completely wrapped up in their conversation, neither had heard the man approach.
“Teresa Lupino,” he said. “You come out here to howl wit’ me?” He set a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the edge of the open window.
“No, I didn’t, Gabriel,” Mrs. Lynch told him. Gabriel Mock, Noonan thought, remembering him now. “As I’m sure you know.”
“Why’s that?” he said, peering around her at Noonan.
“You’re way too short for me,” she told him. “I only howl with tall men. Six feet at least.”
How tall was Dec Lynch? Noonan wondered. Not six feet, but close.
At this Gabriel Mock threw back his head and laughed so hard he nearly lost his balance. “Short?” he said. “That’s what it is? I’m short?”
“Also, I’m married,” she said.
“You married and me short,” he said, wiping his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “Thank the Lord it ain’t nothin’ else. Wouldn’t want there to be no other obstacles. Who’s this here?”
“This is a friend of my son’s. I’m trying to talk some sense into him.”
He studied Noonan with bloodshot eyes. “You smart, you’ll do like this woman says. She’s smarter than you by a mile, and I don’t even know who you are. Don’t care who you are. You want a sip of this howlin’ juice? You ever howl?”
“No, thanks.”
The little man returned his attention to Lucy’s mother. “Polite,” he said. “Don’t know who he is, but he’s polite. Give him that much. But stupid, huh?”
“Not completely,” Tessa Lynch said, far from a ringing endorsement, though it pleased Noonan anyway.
Gabriel regarded him again. “NCS. I see you again, that’s what I’ll call you. NCS. Not Completely Stupid. You and me’ll know what it stand for. Call me what you want. Call me Gizzard if that make you happy. I don’t care. I’m a call you NCS, whether you like it or not. Come out here some night, you feel like it. I live right over there.” He waved in the general direction of a small outbuilding, its silhouette just visible in the dark. “Bring a bottle of juice and you be welcome. Bring Junior with you. You know who I mean?”
Noonan nodded.
“Lou Lynch Junior, who I mean. He’s a ama-teur howler, like yourself, I ’spect. Maybe I start callin’ him NCSE. Not Completely Stupid Either.”
“Neither of these boys is going to come out here and get drunk with you, Gabriel, so you can put that right out of your mind.”
“Why not? Maybe they not like you. Maybe they ain’t prejudice against short people.”
“They’re underage. You supply them with alcohol, you go to jail.”
“Supply them?” Gabriel Mock seemed to think this was about the funniest idea he’d ever heard. “They supply me, the way it gon work. Besides. Who my suppose to howl wit’ out here? Tell me that. Man don’t like to howl by hisself all the time. Gets lonesome.”
“I imagine it does,” Mrs. Lynch conceded. “How’s your boy doing, Gabriel?”
“Don’t know,” he said, straightening up, suddenly sober. “Never say a word to me.”
“It was a terrible thing.”
“World full of terrible things. Maybe you noticed.”
“Oh, I have, Gabriel. I have,” she said. “I still remember the day you and your father appeared on our front porch.” Her eyes, Noonan saw, were glistening.
“Wadn’t your fault, none of it,” Gabriel told her. “’Cept for not likin’ short people, you all right. Always was. Shouldn’t pay that day no mind. All in the past.” He paused, staring off in the dark. He was still holding the bottle, but he’d yet to bring it to his lips. “Guess that teacher lookin’ after him now. Thinks he’s the boy’s father or some such. Talks to him, people say. Converse, the two of ’em. Teacher observe somethin’ and my boy tell him he agree or don’t agree. What you make of that?”
“I think any son of yours would be foolish not to talk to his father.”
Gabriel shook his head, but seemed to appreciate her vote of confidence. “Nah, I don’t know nothin’, come right down to it. Guess he figure that out and decide not to waste his time talkin’ to a man who don’t make sense, that waste all his time howlin’ and other nonsense. Anyhow, good night, Teresa. Oka
y if I call you Teresa?”
“Call me Gizzard if you want.” Mrs. Lynch smiled, putting the car in reverse. Only when they’d turned around and she put the car in drive did the little man lift the bottle to his lips.
Back on the highway, heading into town, Mrs. Lynch shook her head and glanced over at him. “Look in that man’s eyes sometime and tell me the world’s a good place.” But then she chuckled. “Teresa Lupino. My maiden name. Nobody’s called me that in twenty years. It might as well have belonged to another person entirely.”
“Wasn’t it you who just said people don’t change,” Noonan reminded her, pleased to be able to lob her own conviction back at her.
“Touché,” she said, shooting him a wry smile.
“What happened on the porch?” Noonan thought to ask.
“Oh, maybe I’ll tell you someday when I’m not feeling so blue. I don’t need to remember that tonight.” She was remembering it, though, he could tell. By the time they pulled into the Marconi driveway, a full moon had risen, illuminating his mother where she stood, pale and ghostlike, at the front window, looking out into the street. Waiting for Noonan? His father? Mrs. Lynch rolled down her window and waved, but she must not have recognized who it was because she didn’t wave back.
OVER THE SUMMER Noonan found himself spending more and more time at Ikey Lubin’s. In the beginning he went there to avoid going home, but in truth the place had grown on him. He discovered, as Sarah apparently had before him, that you couldn’t have a relationship with just one Lynch, and she seemed to have a deep affection for the whole clan. It was like she was going steady with Ikey Lubin’s, with the entire Lynch family, and they with her. She completed them, somehow. That’s what her drawing of the market seemed to mean, not just to her but to all of them.
And now, as the drawing had predicted, Noonan himself had rung that tiny bell over the front door and entered Lynch World, as he’d come to think of Ikey Lubin’s. By now he’d discovered that it didn’t really matter whether Lucy was working or not, since he hung out at the store regardless. “Bobby Macaroni,” the ever jovial Big Lou would announce whenever Noonan appeared on the premises, even if it was for the third time that day. This, to him, was the best joke ever. “Have your dad drop by sometime,” he suggested at least once a week, as if the Lynches and the Marconis had remained the best of friends down through the years, without so much as a cross word between them. “You don’t never see him around anywhere.” By “anywhere” he apparently meant Ikey Lubin’s, which Big Lou seldom left.
Dec also seemed to enjoy having Noonan drop by, especially after football practice started in August. A born gambler, he bet the horses and the daily number religiously, but his first love was sports—professional, college, even high school—so he quizzed him hard about how Thomaston’s team was shaping up. And when he heard that Noonan was thinking about a used motorcycle to get back and forth to his various jobs, he took him down to a West End garage across from the gravel pit where he stored his beloved old Indian. He’d given up riding it over a decade ago, but loved the bike too much to sell it. “Cost you a few bucks to bring it back to life,” he said, “but it’d be yours to use. Just keep it running good and don’t blame me when you get killed on it.” Noonan, falling in love with the Indian on sight, promised he wouldn’t. Lucy made him a loan for repairs and insurance so he wouldn’t have to ask his father.
After that first night, when she quizzed him about his intentions, even Tessa Lynch seemed disposed to cautious affection. Aware that he was always hungry, she’d fix him a plate of food as soon as he entered Ikey’s. There was always work to be done at the store, so he gave as good as he got, but still. It was as if she’d intuited what his life was like at home, and they’d agreed that the less time he spent in the Borough house, the better for all concerned. She still didn’t seem entirely to trust him but rather to have arrived at the calculated decision that his presence posed less of a threat than his absence.
The unspoken understanding was that his real role at Ikey’s was to see Lucy through the summer in Sarah’s absence. While Lucy had told Noonan his spells were a thing of the past, his mother wasn’t convinced. True, he’d only had one relatively minor episode in the last couple of years, but it had occurred the previous summer when Sarah was away. Ever the optimist, Big Lou believed Lucy had simply outgrown the spells. Lucy’s doctors—who had no idea what they were or what caused them—apparently had predicted as much. Mrs. Lynch didn’t openly disagree, though Noonan could tell that she credited Sarah and her calming, grounding effect. If true, that meant that she was hoping Noonan might serve the same purpose.
As the summer wore on, Noonan also became less certain that his friend was cured, and he often recalled Mrs. Lynch’s mantra—that people didn’t change. Though more squared away and less needy, Lucy was in some ways stranger now than he’d been before. Seemingly incapable of imagining a world or a life outside of Thomaston, he exhibited no curiosity about Noonan’s experience at the academy, almost as if he didn’t believe the place really existed or believed that his friend hadn’t existed during his time there. It was understood that Lucy would be going off to college right after high school, but he refused to apply to any school more than two hours away, so that he could come home on weekends to help out at the store. It didn’t seem to trouble him that Sarah, who was applying to colleges in New York City, wouldn’t be coming home on weekends, nor did he seem excited about visiting her there. What Noonan had been hearing about the city—the great jazz clubs, the exciting times to be had in Greenwich Village and, if you were bold enough, Harlem—didn’t interest Lucy at all.
No, rather than contemplate the future, Lucy seemed fixated on the past. At seventeen, he was already as backward looking as an octogenarian. He’d begin every other sentence with the same word, “remember.” “Remember how all us boys were in love with her?” he asked one day when they passed Marie’s Beauty Shop, where Karen Cirillo, who’d dropped out of school, now worked. Noonan had no idea he’d ever been keen on Karen, his second cousin, any more than Lucy knew he’d deflowered her when they were twelve. She’d been lush and voluptuous back then, it was true. Now, though, four short years later, she looked about thirty-five, completely gone to seed. And for some reason Lucy seemed to take Karen’s decline personally, as if some foundation had been weakened, and it was his duty to shore it up. “She just needs to lose some weight,” he said hopefully, anxious, Noonan could tell, for him to agree. “That and the mustache,” he’d replied.
To Noonan, his friend’s obsession with the recent past made no sense. After all, he’d just completed three reasonably happy, well-adjusted years in Thomaston High. Why would anybody, much less Lucy Lynch, feel nostalgic for junior high, with all its skewed symmetries? There he’d been a miserable loner, whereas now he had Sarah, and the two seemed happy together. Why pine for Karen Cirillo? Because, he could hear Mrs. Lynch saying, people don’t change.
AT THE MARCONI HOUSE, everything had changed. His father was rarely there, even in the evenings. He claimed to be working longer hours at the post office and traveling around the region as a consultant to support his growing family, but Noonan was sure he was spending most nights with the woman on Division Street. Which was fine. His mother, strangely blissful now, a new infant at her breast, seemed content that peace and quiet should reign. His little brothers, most of whom weren’t so little anymore, had the look of pale, exhausted victims of the blitz, climbing up out of underground bunkers at the all-clear signal, blinking at the light and wondering if the bombing would resume. With Noonan working long hours and hanging out at Ikey Lubin’s, he himself was seldom there either. Occasionally, late at night or early in the morning, he’d run into his father at the refrigerator, and then there’d be a wary, wordless little dance of courtesy. Amazingly, his mother seemed to conclude that her husband and eldest son were in the process of reconciling, putting their long, virulent animosity aside. Only once did she regard Noonan curiously and ask if he?
??d said something to his father back when she was in the hospital. Noonan, seeing no reason to trouble her, had lied.
It was the middle of July before he noticed the tiny pill she took with her orange juice first thing every morning and again before going to bed at night. Nor was he quick to connect that pill with the fact that this baby—alone among Marconi infants in this respect—never seemed to fuss, instead smiling blissfully at the world as if it had no father and no need of one.
WHEN SARAH RETURNED to Thomaston at the end of the summer, Noonan barely recognized her. Suddenly she was no longer a girl, but rather a young woman. Lucy had invited him to come along to meet her at the station—he couldn’t help wondering why—and waiting in the parking lot, he saw the hug she gave Lucy when she got off the train. Did it differ from the one she gave him a couple minutes later? He didn’t think so.
“How come you never wrote me?” she demanded on the drive home. They were sitting three across in the Lynch station wagon, and she elbowed him in the ribs, hard, when she asked.
“You never wrote me,” he pointed out.
“Untrue,” she said. “I addressed every one of my letters to Ikey Lubin’s, which includes you. Everybody else wrote back. Even Dec sent me a dirty postcard. First you show up four years late, then you don’t write. Are you going to be a crappy friend?”
“I guess we’ll see.”
“I hear you bought a motorcycle.”
“Not exactly. Dec’s letting me use his.”
“So who do I ask for a ride, him or you?”
“Ask your boyfriend.”
Now she elbowed Lucy, just as hard. “Can Bobby give me a ride on Dec’s motorcycle?”
Say no, Noonan thought.
“Sure,” said his friend. “Why not?”
Noonan could have told him. Should have.
WAS IT POSSIBLE to miss somebody you’d met only once, someone you didn’t really know? Probably not, but that was what it had felt like having Sarah back—like he’d been missing her all summer without knowing it. He lay awake that night, remembering the hug she’d given him there in the parking lot. Never having received such an unself-conscious embrace from a girl his own age, he didn’t know what to make of it. By seventeen, most girls were physically aware, and they angled their bodies accordingly. Sarah had hugged him like an older sister would, unafraid that he might misinterpret it. Did that mean she had no more interest in him than a sister would? She was Lucy’s girlfriend, after all. Still, Noonan couldn’t quite decide whether her embrace suggested confidence or a complete lack thereof. Was she unable to imagine a boy like him being attracted to a girl like her, or was she placing her trust in him, in his virtue, as Lucy’s friend? A mistake, if the latter.